The DeVos family has had an outsize influence in Michigan, by its charitable contributions and its political contributions.
After the Detroit Free Press published a scathing series of articles about the corrupt, unaccountable practices in charter schools in the state, the legislature was shamed into drafting a law that would provide oversight of the charter sector.
The DeVos family gave out $1.5 million in campaign contributions to make sure that charter schools continued to be unregulated and unaccountable.
80% of the charter schools in Michigan operate for profit. No other state has so many for-profit operators.
Detroit is overrun with charters. It is at the very bottom of all urban districts tested by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, despite all its choice and competition. Or because of them.
Michigan doesn’t have vouchers, because the people of Michigan voted them down in 2000 when the DeVos family proposed an initiative to permit public funds to flow to nonpublic schools. The measure lost overwhelmingly, by 69-31%. No county in the state voted for it.
Milwaukee has had both charters and vouchers for more than 20 years, and it is among the lowest scoring urban districts in the nation, but ahead of Detroit.
Read what the New York Times wrote about charters in Detroit last June. DeVos now owns this mess.
Why should anyone open a charter school, get public money, and be free of oversight? Why should taxpayer dollars flow to religious schools when every state referendum on vouchers has gone down to inglorious defeat by large majorities?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If the marketplace is such a miracle in all things, how come it can’t survive without a constant supply of involuntary tax dollars?
Capitalist economic models are misplaced and destructive when it comes to the management of community resources and democratic social institutions. The first are predicated on ever-escalating pyramids of inequality that keep the great majority of people climbing as hard as they can just to keep their heads above water. The second are based on the principles of equal citizenship and inherent value.
The requirements of equal opportunity and equal protection under the law are not diminished by the fact that people pay different amounts to support their community resources, for example, universal free public education.
The taxes I pay to support the local police and the national military go to public funds that must remain public funds, accountable to the public at every stage of defrayal. Public funds are not bank accounts, to pay into and withdraw from at will. Nothing about my support of public safety and public security institutions buys me a voucher to purchase my own firearms. Policies like that would destroy public safety and security.
Which tells us the true end of those who promote vouchers withdrawn from public education …
Unfortunately those funds for the military have never been accounted for as required by law on a yearly basis. Never.
Bingo.
If military waste and fraud were exposed, there would be a lot upset taxpayers. I live in a military community, and my husband has done taxes for various contractors. Many contractors don’t really feel accountable, and there is a lot of waste.
Jon Awbrey writes about the massive difference between the capitalist model and the democratic (commonwealth/common-good) model employed in “the management of community resources and democratic social institutions” . . . BTW installed abundantly in our founding documents. He writes that under the common-good model: “The requirements of equal opportunity and equal protection under the law are not diminished by the fact that people pay different amounts to support their community resources, for example, universal free public education.”
Regardless of individual programs or issues, like health care (the AFA, Medicare/ Medicaid), education, government regulations, even Social Security), that whole idea (our present and long-term political foundations) underpins the legitimacy of all of the above and more; and that idea is what is presently under attack. There are lots of smaller fires, then, but the source of the flame is in the minds of those who have abandoned (or never really knew) the political ground that they walk on.
To the mind that is saturated with capitalist-only principles, there is no “we the people.” <–that’s the idea that is a problem, and they want to get rid of it.
Further, the capitalist model is not the conservative model by any means; but the capitalist mind-set HAS (quite apparently) become the neo-Republican model; and it is bereft of anything resembling the principles that underpin conservative thought or, need I say, the democratic principles (small d) principles that are when understood with a small “d.”
It’s gone way beyond mere party politics. And Jon’s example of getting vouchers to buy firearms is telling for education in a democracy understood as the DNA of its ongoing existence. The example is prescient: “Public funds are not bank accounts, to pay into and withdraw from at will. Nothing about my support of public safety and public security institutions buys me a voucher to purchase my own firearms. Policies like that would destroy public safety and security.”
To add fuel to the education in-your-face fire, the DeVos capitalist-only kind of thinking wants tax money (that they try hard not to pay), and then wants to remain unaccountable for it, a government “giveaway” free of public or government oversight. The poor among us don’t “deserve” such “giveaways” from our taxes, but the rich do?
Or as Diane says: “Why should anyone open a charter school, get public money, and be free of oversight?” Indeed, why do we even have to ask such questions–unless of course the capitalist mind-set (not conservative) has become impenetrable to arguments based in ideas that take the common good as a given, not to mention as central to our founders’ ideas, and to our founding documents.
With such power in place now, it’s like talking to the walking brain dead. Remember when George Bush flew over the Katrina disaster? It’s been a long-time coming.
This is interesting. It goes back to when DeVos initially became active in Michigan:
“To reach that goal, the groups promoting ‘school reform’ have mounted a relentless attack on the state’s education system,” Guyette wrote, later adding, “But that alone wouldn’t be enough. To galvanize Michigan parents and taxpayers behind the idea of school choice, the reformers needed a Trojan horse that could effectively blur the lines between public and private education: charter schools.”
I think they’ve succeeded in doing that- “blurring the lines” so much so that there’s no real meaning to “public” other than “publicly funded”.
http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/archives/2016/06/08/detroit-school-legislation-backed-by-charter-advocates-was-years-in-the-making
Chiara,
The party of Engler, Snyder, and the DeVos clan has never managed to “galvanize Michigan parents and taxpayers” behind any course of action except to oppose their DeVios designs whenever they can.
Which is why the Republican (TEA + KKK) Party tries to end-run and gerrymander and just plain strong-arm past the largely Democratic-voting population in every sneaky way they can. The voters successfully repealed the GOP’s Emergency Manager law and all the GOP did was to turn right around and spit in the People’s face with a carbon copy bill plus a phony appropriation rider to seal it off from referendum.
So don’t blame the People of Michigan — the Michigan GOP doesn’t give a damn about the People.
It’s just so ludicrous to me that we will have a Secretary of Education who is OPPOSED to public education.
This is where ed reform led us- to this absolutely ridiculous situation.
Is she planning on traveling around the country attacking public schools? Why would parents of public school children and others who value public schools support that? We’d be insane to back her. Her stated goal is to weaken public schools enough to close them. Our kids are just collateral damage of her ideological crusade? We’re supposed to offer them up as a sacrifice on the altar of privatization? Hell, no, I won’t and neither should any other public school parent.
“It’s just so ludicrous to me that we will have a Secretary of Education who is OPPOSED to public education.”
This should be being shouted out every minute, hour and day until her name is withdrawn. (Ah, the fantasy life. Maybe I should just turn on the boob tube and relax, all will be fine.)
Just watch, the fact that the Milwaukee schools use vouchers and they score higher than Detroit does without them will be used as an argument in support of vouchers. despite the fact there has been no discernible improvement in Milwaukee because of them.
Milwaukee is one of the lowest performing urban districts in the nation. Detroit is the worst, among all urban districts tested by NAEP
Using invalid assessments, i.e., NAEP, gives results similar to using OTR weigh scales to assess the volume of the trailer.
The NYT article did a good job with the Detroit education morass. I can tell you, being a resident not far from the city, it’s even worse up close. The level of chaos and transiency is insane. The inner ring suburban schools have become landing places for many Detroit kids. Primarily because of stability.
But it has also had the effect of shifting those suburban communities.
The DeVos family is fully in support of such an implosion. The system is designed to be a frustrating failure. Then, the failure can be capitalized upon with the idea that anything would be better. To be sure, Detroit hasn’t had a strong education system in a while, but the reforms have exacerbated the problem considerably.
And the choices are lengthy. Detroit is an argument against school choice. The test scores are brutal, parents find ways to flee to suburban districts, charters only locate where real estate values have a chance at appreciation and entire neighborhoods are without a local school. All those charter choices are functioning like the thought experiment that places like the Heartland Institute insist would be so glorious.
But it’s really just chaos and uncertainty.
You know, I hate to be demanding but maybe Mr. Trump could meet with one the hundreds of the ordinary people who actually run public schools in this country.
He met with Rhee, Moskowtiz and DeVos so that takes care of the charter/private school crowd. I want an advocate for public school kids at the table.
He knows we have public schools in the United States, right? Unfashionable and much-maligned, but 90% of kids attend one. When does reality intrude into this ed reform vision that is being foisted on us? Do any of these people work on behalf of PUBLIC school children? Can we get ONE ordinary non-celebrity public school leader?
Hell, I’m a recently retired public school teacher, I’ll sacrifice my time for the team!
Public school parents need to get much, much more demanding of “our” representatives in DC.
The entire discussion around DeVos is ed reform is charters and vouchers:
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2016/11/30/choice_without_accountability_puts_children_at_risk_1327.html
Our schools are being utterly ignored in this echo chamber debate. This will continue until public school parents demand an advocate for their schools in DC and a place at the table. Your kids deserve an advocate and so do your schools. You don’t have to apologize to these people or beg them to work for kids in public schools. It’s part of their job. They aren’t doing it.
Has Trump met with anyone who runs a public school or a parent whose children attend one?
He met with Rhee and Moskowtiz so the charter sector has been heard from. Can we get an advocate at the table for our schools?
There are hundreds of ordinary people who run public schools in this country. Why are they excluded in DC negotiations? Is this “ed reform celebrity only need apply”?
Why would I accept that as a public school parent and public school supporter? The federal government we’re all paying for can now just exclude public schools from any consideration or input? I don’t accept that.
Not a word out of DC or the Trump Administration on plans for public schools. We went from charters, charters, charters to vouchers, vouchers, vouchers.
They simply don’t value our schools. If they DID value our schools, this entire debate wouldn’t revolve around charters and vouchers.
If the federal government intends to continue to ignore the 90% of schools that are public schools, then public schools should be permitted to ignore ed reform mandates from the federal government.
This is a BAD DEAL for us. We get all of the downside and none of the upside. I don’t accept that. I don’t think public employees should have the option of “supporting” or “opposing” public schools.
The only interest they have in public education is how to access funds. They will probably only care about testing as a vehicle to privatization. I am concerned about what types of punitive measures they will try to impose against Opt-Out. If the feds are going to squander the Title 1 money on market based nonsense, districts will be faced with a tough choice. They will either have to cut compensatory services or raise taxes, If they raise taxes to make up the difference, I hope the taxpayers revolt against Trump’s plans.
“Why should anyone open a charter school, get public money, and be free of oversight? ”
Because they can. Laws have been written to make this possible and plenty of money has been going to anyone who can dodge accountability.
Obama’s administration shoved money for charters out the door even with sloppy reviews of requests for grants.
Add the billions flowing to charters from mega-foundations hostile to public schools and from edtech companies eager to make teachers a relic of the past, alsong with brick and mortor schools (especially those purpose-built and designed to reflect the aspirations of a community).
Good answer: Why should anyone open schools, suck up public money, and freely get away with it? BECAUSE THEY CAN. This should be seen as the most devastating failure of President Obama’s educational legacy.
This is the future of public education if DeVos gets her way. How sad. How scary.